Lamentations for a Wildflower
by RegencyPoet
Summary: Consumed with the loss plaguing him on the eve that marks the anniversary of his deceased love, the Count envisions her in his study. No matter how far we try to bury past tragedies, eventually they all well up to the surface. One-Shot. DraculaxOC


**This one-shot was a result of me cracking open my heart today and pouring out its contents. I haven't published or updated any of my stories in a very long time and feel this is a cathartic moment and fresh new start to my writing on here. So much credit goes to** _Remember_ **for always encouraging my writing and picking me up, brushing me off and pushing me to do my best in my darkest moments. I value your friendship so dearly. Enjoy! Reviews are much appreciated.**

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The evening was coming to a close for the Count, quite unsuccessfully. Instead of making strategic maneuvers he had the foresight of planning and accomplishing in the next century, he found himself sitting in the lingering silence of his study, chin resting upon his clasped hands. Solemn. Pensive. Passive in a way that was not like the usual prince of darkness.

Out of all the passing days, months, years and countless nights he's ripped lives from this earth, stamping out any dangers to the future of his kind, Count Dracula reserved this one night for something he could never bury in the ashes of his past; or rather, someone.

She was nothing but a name on the tip of his tongue, a whisper in passing whilst he traversed the empty halls of his home, a faint touch in the dark when his brides weren't there to occupy his bed. She was his worst nightmare and his most glorious dream. She was the light to his dark.

And she was gone.

She was gone for three centuries now.

And today marked the day of her passing, when the wars of his country ravaged kingdoms upon kingdoms, bloodshed at its peak, and fires raged nightly.  
He looked about the confines of his solitude, the sole place where his mind could be at peace and quell the incessant nuisances of eternity. Paperwork was neatly stacked on his desk, books carefully lined their cases. A few dated weapons here and there, historical documents and artwork across the centuries were displayed in acknowledgement of how far he's come from the ruler he once was. None of the items of old that he kept from his previous life were of her. The Count wasn't one for sentimental keepsakes. She was his past, but she was not his present or his future.

But the curse of eternity ensured a sharp memory for Dracula, and remember he did. Not everything, but enough to scorn the fine perfections that mark his existence. Her face was always clear in his mind whenever she clawed to the surface, and she did yearly, as much as he cursed at her and hated her and tried to bury her in what should remain buried.

Her skin, unlike other ladies, had been kissed on numerous occasions by the sun, freckled and beaming with radiance. He remembered nights he stared at her under candlelight, how he watched the dancing flames reflect off her honey-blonde hair and deepen the endless pools of warm chestnut that were her eyes. That face haunted him in his most solitary of moments.

"Eliana," he whispered to himself, as if the utterance of her name was a way to purge and then banish her memory.

Moments of weakness had never been a part of who he is and was. The Count always remained stalwart in the running of his country in times past, never subject to feelings of intense love or sadness. He remained even more resolute and indomitable today.

But the sigh that left his lips whispered tales of woe, unfathomable hardships that screamed _he lies_ into his thoughts.

 _Eliana_ , her name flashed in the chaos of his thoughts again.

"Vladislaus," a soft voice countered, the sound so close it could have moved the ebony locks bound at the nape of his neck. He felt those locks move only briefly, as if a finger had wound its way around a strand.

The naturally formidable man froze in his chair, knowing his brides had retired for the evening and that none of them ever addressed him by his birth name. He hadn't heard that voice in three-hundred years, so light and full of sunshine it sounded like fresh spring rain chiming on fine porcelain. The Count couldn't turn around.

Had she truly visited him on the eve of her death?

He felt a slender hand press into his shoulder, those familiar honey-blonde curls brushing his ear.

"Have you forgotten, Vladislaus?" she murmured. "Have you forgotten me?"

If his heart had a beat, it would have been hammering a frenzied rhythm.

She stooped low and kissed his cheek, her lips strangely warm and shocking against his frigid skin. It took a little over a century to forget how she smelled, and by God, her scent filled every space in this room. Honeysuckle, for when she went picking wildflowers during the day. Vanilla, for when her mother forced her to stay in and bake pastries for their business. And on some days, firewood, for when he stole her away from her home and let her dance around ceremonial fires the villagers built on special occasions. The scent was enough that it overrode every thought, feeling and action that denied her ever being near him.

How he wanted to forget her in this moment on this very night. He had turned his back to the memories of his mortal love so long ago because he knew he would never look upon her beautiful face again. Even if in seven hells a worthy opponent bested him, she belonged in heaven, and he did not.

After a long pause filled with hesitation, he answered, "No, I have not, my love."

"Then why will you not look at me?"

"Because you are not real."

He felt her hands graze the planes of his face followed by a series of tender kisses planted on his forehead and neck. The Count closed his eyes, hands visibly trembling at this false image of his lost beloved.

"I am real, my love. Look upon my face and tell me it isn't so."

Her fingers delicately pulled at his eyelids that were squeezed shut, smoothing over his cool skin until he opened them.

And there she was. Eliana was here, standing before him and exuding radiance he had not been gifted the sight of in centuries. She was dressed in one of her favorite gowns, a purchase he did not regret as a mortal, and it glimmered in the dim candlelight of his study just as it had centuries ago as she knelt at his feet.  
He stretched out one of his arms, hands still trembling, almost terrified to touch her.

"You were thrown to your death, from the highest tower of my fortress. You aren't real," he affirmed, hand still within reach of her face.

She grabbed his hand and let it rest on her cheek, the warmth of her skin astounding to him. His thumb moved over her rosy lips, pressing down in disbelief when it gave way at his touch.

"I love you," Eliana vowed, kissing his thumb while it traced every inch of her mouth. "Do you still love me?"

Dracula's mind was humming with an onslaught of sensations and feelings at the sight of her. He was shocked, amazed and sat in utter uncertainty, even knowing how tangible this woman was in front of him. Were his own memories fooling him? Had he not lost her?

His memories took him back to that very night, sights unlocked from the chasm of his mind to recall what had happened to his Eliana. He was too late when he was leaping bounds of stairs to retrieve her. The Turks were invading, and he was needed at the forefront of the battlements to push them back. The Count remembered leaving careful instructions with his servants to keep Eliana safe should his army fall. While the frontal attack was won, the Turks snuck less than fifty men into his fortress when the time was right. He remembered there being blood everywhere, servants living their last moments on the floor as he soared past them, screaming Eliana's name until his throat was hoarse. They had raped her, sliced at her flesh for sport and dangled her off the tower by the time he made it to the top. And before he could ever cross the threshold to save her, they released her arm, leaving him to watch her fall until gravity crushed her body into dust.

She was long dead in this world. But not in his memory.

She looked not a day past the age she was when he lost her, and she was staring at him questionably, a frown marring her features as she waited for her answer.

"Do you still love me?" She tucked a stray hair behind his ear as she spoke, leaning in, her lips a breath away from his own.

Never had the Count been so petrified in his life.

Eliana leaned closer, letting a ghost of a kiss grace his mouth. He knew if he drank too deep from the well of grief, he wouldn't ever surface again.

"Go away, my love." It was all he could give her, the title of love. He loved her fiercely, damn it, he will love her until the day the devil knocks on his door and claims him for himself. But she was a ghost, a shimmering mirage of love he could never experience the depths of again, never drink from its waters or taste of its joy. "You are dead."

"I'm here with you again, my love. You have not lost me," she smiled, and it was a glorious one. No malice, no ulterior motive. Everything about her rang truth and merriment.

The Count thought he could feel the slightest prick of tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, but any trace of lamentation is a waste of the man he is now. Vladislaus died with Eliana that day, and so did any remnant of love he harbored in his black heart. He wasn't coming back. Eliana wasn't coming back.

"You are dead!" he bellowed, the outburst not affecting Eliana in the slightest way.

She smiled again, this time with a drop of sadness curving down her cheek, falling onto their twined hands.

"I love you," she repeated. "I will always love you."

Eliana rose from the floor and pressed one final kiss onto his furrowed brow.

And then she was gone.


End file.
